2023: INEC will comply with court order on voter registration – Okoye

Commissioner, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, has said that INEC will comply with the ruling of a Federal High Court in Abuja on the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

Okoye made this known when he appeared on Channels Television’s programme, Politics Today, on Tuesday.

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“The commission is a constitutional body, and we are under a constitutional obligation to give effect to judgements and orders of properly constituted courts of law, and we are going to give effect to the order made by the Federal High Court.”

Recall that Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon of the Federal High Court in Abuja had stopped INEC from going ahead with its decision to end the CVR exercise on June 30, as scheduled.

The judge gave the ruling while granting an order of interim injunction following the hearing of an argument on motion ex parte filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).

Okoye noted that the CVR exercise had been going on for the past one year and that INEC would on the 29th day of June convince the court on the adjourned date on why the exercise should be discontinued for now.

“The court has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to come back on the 29th day of June and explain its position; we are going to go back to the court on that 29th day of June to explain our position and then allow the rest of the issues to be determined by the court.

“The continuous voter registration has been ongoing for one year. We started the online registration on the 28th day of June 2021 and then started the physical registration in July 2021 so the online has been going on for one year.”

Okoye noted that there were days when the INEC officers would register only one person for a whole day.

He said, “For each day our registration officers spend registring voters, it also has financial implications. This is not a fresh registration, it is only meant for persons who have not registered before and those who have attained the age of 18.

“These are the ones that are supposed to engage in this continuous voter registration excercise. Persons who seek to do transfer, whose PVCs have damaged are not obligated to register again.”